politics

Will I let my 401K balance make my anger at Russian election meddling?

The election of Donald Trump was been very good for my balances in retirement. Overall my retirement assets were up about 35% on January 26, 2018 and as of this writing February 14, 2018 were still up 31% since election day 2016. Yet I voted for Hillary Clinton (unenthusiastically) and feel the case can be made with data that the Russian’s did impact the outcome of the election. No they did not hack voting machines. They did use social media and data stolen from the DNC to change peoples minds. Below the state by state case.

Michigan has 16 electoral votes according to politico. Donald Trump won 2,279,805 47.6% of the vote as opposed to 2,268,193 47.3% for Hillary Clinton. The margin of victory was 11,612 votes. Source: Michigan results Politico

Facebook reports millions of ad impressions, paid for by accounts associated with Russian accounts, posts to “news” stories were aimed at voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Fact link: New York Times

It should be noted that the campaigns spent $81 million on Facebook ads thus far the Russians $46K. See this link for data:Tech Crunch story

Donald Trump according to wikipedia won 304 electoral votes to 227 for Hillary Clinton. The close states total 46 electoral votes. The margin of victory totaled 79,848 votes. Magically eliminates the email hack of the DNC and assume the Russian Facebook buy was well crafted and influenced undecided votes is also eliminated.

Swing 46 electoral votes to Clinton. Her total becomes 273 electoral votes with 270 votes required for getting elected president.

The Russian ad buys resulted in 128 million views according to Facebook analysis. These were concentrated in the three states listed above. The campaigns had many more views in these three states. These were legal, allowed by election law the Russian ad’s were illegal.

Could the Russian ads changed 80,000 votes in three states? Yes. Does it make me angry? Yes. though I will admit the anger is lessoned by my retirement account growth. Yes I can be bought.

If the Russian illegal ad buys swung the election it is a watershed event and worthy of note.

Hillary Clinton was advised to campaign harder in all three states. Believing she was winning she chose to be elsewhere. Just as she did in 2008 she assumed she was winning and ran a terrible campaign.

A few more rallies in all three states and less arrogance and she could have won. The private email server designed to avoid Freedom of Information requests sealed the deal.

The Russians may have illegally changed 80,000 minds. The reason it only required this number lies in Hillary Clintons lap. Many criticize our electoral process. However if you can’t run a good campaign you may not be effective at running the country.